Smiling is powerful stuff. Back in March, I had this experience. Today, over at Fuse 8 News, Betsy Bird shared this Ted Talk about smiling as she and her husband await their three week old daughter’s first smile.
Gutman’s talk reminds me of some anonymous wisdom dished out to me on the streets of New York City decades ago. I was trying to look tough and unapproachable when this guy said, “You know why you should smile?”
I glowered.
He said, “It looks good. It feels good. And people wonder what you have been doing.”
My friend Donna Bowman Bratton is featuring her second week of interviewing writers about what makes critique groups work well. This week she interviewed Emily Kristin Anderson and Me! Check it out here.
Today’s quote comes to us from my friend and young adult author Janet Fox who says, “I love this quote because it says it all – you have to show up and do the work; the muse doesn’t visit you unless your door is open. Jane says it all the time, and most recently at the NE SCBWI conference, where she admitted that she still gets rejected all the time. But she knows that the only way through is ‘BIC.’ Do the work. Show up. Put that rear end in the chair. I really believe that persistence is the essential trait of a successful writer (actually, a successful anything.)”
Janet Fox
Janet is the author of Faithful (Speak/Penguin Group, 2010) and Forgiven (Speak/Penguin Group, 2011), historical fiction whose main characters are strong young women.
She is also the author of Get Organized Without Losing It (Free Spirit, 2006), a handy guide for students to stay organized.
Really, Janet is a remarkable woman and writer and I am proud to call her my friend.
